Do you still own any VHS tapes? In 2019, the video recording cassettes hold more in common with horror anthologies, overused internet aesthetics, and cheap iPhone filters than the actual analog format that shaped a generation. Nevertheless, if she were still alive today, Marion Stokes may have contributed a handful of thought-provoking diatribes on the purity of analog instruments versus the intangibility of digital constructs—it certainly would not be out of her character.
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The list of roles that Stokes adopted over the course of her lifetime (1929-2012) is quite remarkable. Titles like communist activist, access television producer, political protestor, and obsessive hoarder are not typically tossed around carelessly, but each label fully applies to her legacy. Known for recording television news 24 hours a day over the course of 30 years, Stokes’s collection of over 70,000 VHS and Betamax tapes is an incomparable testament to the evolution of society, the progression of media, and power of forgiveness. And although the world may recognize Stokes solely for her life’s endeavors, those who knew her best possess a different image than most, a factor that “Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project” delves into with striking attention to detail.
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Commendably, ‘Recorder’ bottles every fascinating element of Stokes’s bizarre story into a comfortably peculiar film that parallels the disordered uncertainty of its source material. Matt Wolf’s newest documentary examines Stokes from a perspective that leaves its moral compass by the wayside, ensuring that impartiality is distributed equally. At her worst, Marion Stokes was a selfish, egotistical woman with little regard for anyone but herself; but at her best, she was a misunderstood woman whose only desire was to positively impact the world that abandoned her.
The vastness of Stokes’s collection cannot be understated. With its origins dating back to the 1979 Iranian Hostage Crisis and extending to the Sandy Hook Massacre in 2012, the activist’s VHS opus chronicles the United States from an undiluted perspective. Perched on the edge of her chair, eyes glued to the television. Stokes witnessed America during its brightest days and darkest nights. Moreover, Wolf guarantees viewers grasp the magnitude of Stokes’s accomplishments while also forcing the audience to relive the stomach-churning nostalgia of America’s past. Ranging from distorted collages of the 1992 Los Angeles riots to the apocalyptic September 11 attacks—the latter event features a gut-wrenching sequence split between four screens that unfolds in real-time across multiple news stations—Wolf’s artistic voice peeks beneath the character study to add a stylistic poignancy.
Thankfully, ‘Recorder’ salvages its lack of narrative control with enough emotional weight to earn its memorability. The combination of fascinating source material and creative direction pull the documentary from comparisons to its countless counterparts, and while it may not possess the equally long-lasting effect of Stokes’s social experiment, its commentary on freedom, obsession, and selflessness will not disappear soon.
Deciding whether Marion Stokes was an unacknowledged prodigy or unintentional genius will not be settled easily, because the answer unequivocally exists somewhere between the two titles. Stokes’s commitment to her convictions robbed her of a conventional life; moreover, her choices destroyed families, alienated friends, and nearly ruined her in the process. Yet, had Stokes never made those decisions, and instead ventured down the conformist route, her consequent masterwork would never exist. So, at what point does detrimental obsession cross into uninhibited brilliance? The answer probably lies within Marion Stokes’s tapes, still waiting for someone to find it. [B]
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